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United States of America
The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific. The United States is the only nation to appear in all six Call of Duty games to date. World War II (1940–1945) The United States did not enter World War II until after the rest of the active Allies of World War II|Allied countries had done so. The United States's first contribution to the war was simultaneously to cut off the oil and raw material supplies desperately needed by Japan to maintain its offensive in Manchuria|Manchuria, and to increase military and financial aid to China. Its first contribution to the Allies came in September 1940 in the form of the Lend-Lease|Lend-Lease program with Britain. On December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base in Pearl Harbor, citing America's recent trade embargo as justification. The following day, Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully urged a joint session of United States Congress|Congress to declare war on Japan, calling December 7, 1941 Infamy Speech|"a date which will live in infamy". Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 11, Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, drawing the country into a two-theater war. World War II campaigns provide the setting for Call of Duty 1, 2, 3, and 5. Battle against Germany Upon entering the war, the United States and its allies decided to concentrate the bulk of their efforts on fighting Hitler in Europe, while maintaining a defensive position in the Pacific|Pacific until Hitler was defeated. The United States first step was to set up a large airforce in Britain to concentrate on bombing raids into Germany itself. The American Air force relied on the B-17 Flying Fortress as its primary heavy bomber. Britain had ceased its daylight bombing raids, due to heavy casualties inflicted by the Luftwaffe. The USAAF suffered similar high losses until the introduction of the P-51 Mustang as a long range escort fighter for the bombers. The American army's first ground action was fighting alongside the British, Australian and New Zealand armies in North Africa. By May 1943, the British 8th Army had expelled the Germans from North Africa and the Allies controlled this vital link until the end of the war. The American navy also played an active role in the Atlantic protecting the convoys bringing vital American war material to Britain. By midway through 1943, the Allies were fighting the war from Britain with unbroken supply lines, while at the same time Hitler's armies were very much on the back foot, with heavy bombing taking its toll on production. By early 1944, a planned invasion of Western Europe was underway. What followed on June 6, 1944, was Operation Overlord, or Battle of Normandy. The largest war armada ever assembled landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the penetration of Western Europe that eventually overthrew Hitler and Nazi Germany. Following the landing at Normandy, the Americans contributed greatly to the outcome of the war, with dogged fighting in the Battle of the Ardennes and the Battle of the Bulge resulting in Allied victories against the Germans. The battles took a heavy toll on the Americans, who lost 19,000 men during the Battle of the Bulge alone. The allied bombing raids on Germany increased to unprecedented levels after the D-Day invasion, with over 70% of all bombs dropped on Germany occurring after this date. On April 30, 1945, with Berlin completely overrun with Russian forces and his country in tatters, Adolf Hitler committed suicide|suicide. On May 8, 1945, the war with Germany was over, following its unconditional surrender to the Allied forces. Battle against Japan Due to the United States commitment to defeating Hitler in Europe, the first years of the war against Japan was largely a defensive battle with the United States Navy|United States Navy attempting to prevent the Imperial Japanese Navy|Japanese Navy from asserting dominance of the Pacific region. Initially, Japan won the majority of its battles in a short period of time. Japan quickly defeated and created military bases in Guam|Guam, Thailand|Thailand, British Malaya|Malaya, Hong Kong|Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea|Papua New Guinea, Indonesia|Indonesia and Burma|Burma. This was done virtually unopposed and with quicker speed than that of the German Blitzkrieg|Blitzkrieg during the early stages of the war. This was important for Japan, as it had only 10% of the homeland industrial production capacity of the United States. Image:Douglas MacArthur lands Leyte1.jpg|thumb|left|Douglas MacArthur|Douglas MacArthur lands at the Battle of Leyte|Battle of Leyte, by U.S. Army Signal Corps The turning point of the war was the Battle of Midway|Battle of Midway in June 1942. Following this, the Americans began fighting towards China where they could build an airbase suitable to commence bombing of mainland Japan with its B-29 Superfortress|B-29 Superfortress fleet. The Americans began by selecting smaller, lesser defended islands as targets as opposed to attacking the major Japanese strongholds. During this period, they inadvertently triggered what would become their most comprehensive victory in the entire war. The Pacific war became the largest naval conflict in history. The American Navy emerged victorious after at one point being stretched to almost breaking point with almost complete destruction of the Japanese Navy. The American forces were then poised for an invasion of the Japanese mainland, to force the Japanese into unconditional surrender|unconditional surrender. On April 12, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died and Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd President of the United States. The decision to use nuclear weapon|nuclear weapons to end the conflict has been one of the most controversial decisions of the war. Supporters of the use of the bombs argue that an invasion would have cost enormous numbers of lives, while opponents argue that the large number of civilian casualties resulting from the bombings were still unjustified. The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima|Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki on August 9. On August 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. 2011 The fictional plot of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare portrays the United States as having involved itself with Great Britain and Russian Loyalists in military actions to dissolve rebel activity in the Middle East and Russia during the Second Russian Civil War. After the execution of Yasir Al-Fulani, the country decides to send a multitude of Marines to locate the man responsible, Khaled Al-Asad. After failing to secure him, much of the United States' forces are wiped out by a nuclear attack, the first time a nuclear device would be used in warfare since World War II. Ironically, this attack was against the first and last country to use the weapon since. The United States, along with the United Kingdom and Russian Loyalist forces continue to pursue a campaign to find members of the rebels, killing three out of the four leaders or "Four Horsemen". The campaign is presumed to be continuing in Russia at the end of the game. 2016 In the plot for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 the US, Britain, and several other countries form a group of elite soldiers that is currently called "Task Force 141", lead by Captain "Soap" MacTavish, with other notable members being Ghost and "Roach" Sanderson. The United States appears to still be embroiled in Afghanistan as the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment is in country at the beginning of events of Modern Warfare 2. The events in No Russian, committed by Vladimir Makarov and his group of Ultranationalists (including undercover Ranger Joseph Allen aka Alexei Borodin), stir public outrage against the United States when Makarov kills Joseph Allen to successfully portray the bloodbath as an American-backed terrorist action. The United States itself is then invaded by Russia, triggering a devastating war in which Washington DC and the surrounding area becomes the battlefield. Civilians and other key personnel are evacuated from the DC area (via the Washington Monument) while the military attempts to retake the city. During the siege of the American East Coast, Task Force 141 along with the American 6th fleet are sent on the offensive. Their task is to disable SAM sites on oil rigs for the inevitable assault on the Russian mainland to retrieve Prisoner 627 from a gulag on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Afterwards, Task Force 141 and the rest of the supporting American forces, go on actions to locate and kill Makarov. After the events of Of Their Own Accord and Second Sun, the detonation of a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere above Washington DC causes an EMP wave the city and surrounding areas, which disables all electronics and equipment. This enables the US military to eventually take back control of Washington DC from the overwhelming amount of Russian vehicles and troops. However, it is later revealed that General Shepherd engineered the entire war in order to rise to glory as the man who wiped out terrorism, as well as ensure there were never any shortage of volunteers in the US military. After killing Roach and Ghost, he was tracked down by Soap and Price. After a battle and an exchange of fists with Price, he was killed by Soap, who threw a knife into his eye. It is unclear what role the United States takes after the plot of Modern Warfare 2, though it is presumed that with Russian forces defeated on the home front, a campaign aimed at the Russian mainland would follow. Notes References * * * * * External links *Historical maps of U.S. Maps to be combined and compared *Outline of U.S. History by the U. S. Department of State *U.S. National Archives *American Historical Association *Journal of American History *Colored Timeline of American History broken down by theme Category:Countries Category:Armies Category:Call of Duty 4 Category:Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2